Leading proton production in deep inelastic scattering at HERA

TL;DR

This paper investigates the production of leading protons in deep inelastic scattering at HERA, analyzing their energy and momentum distributions to understand the underlying mechanisms of proton emission in high-energy electron-proton interactions.

Contribution

The study provides detailed measurements of leading proton production cross sections as functions of kinematic variables in deep inelastic scattering at HERA, using the ZEUS detector.

Findings

Leading protons carry a large fraction of the proton energy (xL>0.32).

Production rates depend on xL, pT^2, Q^2, and Bjorken x.

Cross sections are quantified across various kinematic ranges.

Abstract

The semi-inclusive reaction e+ p -> e+ X p was studied with the ZEUS detector at HERA using an integrated luminosity of 12.8 pb-1. The final-state proton, which was detected with the ZEUS leading proton spectrometer, carried a large fraction of the incoming proton energy, xL>0.32, and its transverse momentum squared satisfied pT^2<0.5 GeV^2; the exchanged photon virtuality, Q^2, was greater than 3 GeV^2 and the range of the masses of the photon-proton system was 45<W<225 GeV. The leading proton production cross section and rates are presented as a function of xL, pT^2, Q^2 and the Bjorken scaling variable, x.